Reflection
by She's a Star
Summary: Satine wonders if she'll ever be able to show the world who she truly is.


Reflection  
  
A fanfiction by She's a Star  
  
Disclaimer: Moulin Rouge belongs to Baz Luhrmann and the song Reflection belongs to Christina Aguilera.   
  
A/N: This takes place before the events in the movie, therefore she hasn't met Christian yet....  
  
  
~*~  
  
  
"Mademoiselle Satine, thank you for the...wonderful night."  
The middle aged man put on his hat, then bowed to her, a look of mischievousness in his sparkling brown eyes.  
"Of course, Monsieur Frendrickson," Satine purred, a seductive smile on her face. "I hope you were well pleased."  
"Oh, very, I assure you," he said with a wink, then opened the door and walked out. As soon as it swung shut behind him, she let out a long sigh and collapsed onto the bed. She was getting tired of continuously pretending to be someone that she wasn't. Each night, she had a different personality.  
Smouldering temptress.  
Bright and bubbly.  
Wilting flower.  
The list went on and on.  
True, her greatest ambition WAS to become an actress, but she wanted to be a REAL actress on a stage in front of a crowd, not a fulfiller of the nighttime fantasies of gentlemen.  
With another forlorn sigh, she rose from the bed and walked out of the room and downstairs to her dressing room. She sat before the vanity and stared into the mirror, intensely studying her own features.  
  
~Look at me  
You may think you see  
Who I really am  
But you'll never know me  
Every day  
It's as if I play a part~  
  
She was a different person to everyone. An ice queen to her fellow diamonds, the woman who never showed her emotions. For the men she entertained, anything they wanted her to be. Always sweet and optimistic to Harold, ready for whatever business proposition he threw at her.   
She pretended to be so many different people that she could barely remember her true self....  
"Who am I?" she whispered as she lifted a brush and began to run it through her dark red curls.  
  
~Now I see if I wear a mask I can fool the world  
But I cannot fool my heart~  
  
She'd been given so many various pieces of advice from so many different people in her life.   
Never let anything affect you, and if it does, pretend it doesn't.  
Do whatever you have to to stay off the streets.  
Never fall in love.  
When Satine had heard that particular advice, it had felt like someone had dumped a bucket of icy water over her. Never fall in love??? What good could that bring?  
But she had been a young girl, only fifteen, when she had received the tip.  
Now she knew that it was for the best.  
"A courtesan can't fall in love," she said softly, setting down the hairbrush and continuing to study her reflection.  
  
~Who is that girl I see  
Staring straight back at me?  
Why is my reflection someone I don't know?  
Must I pretend that I'm someone else for all time?  
When will my reflection show  
Who I am inside?~  
  
"Always an actress," she muttered with a wry smile at her reflection in the mirror. She was never actually herself. She hadn't been her true self in so long that she couldn't remember when she'd last let the real Satine shine through. Perhaps with her mother...with her mother she'd always felt perfectly happy, and free to be who she really was. But her mother had died, and her father, who had a never-ending crave for alcohol, threw her out on the streets soon after. At the age of fourteen, she'd begun to work at the Moulin Rouge, and she'd never felt that she could be truly herself with anyone else.  
  
~I am now in a world where I have to hide my heart  
And what I believe in  
But somehow I will show the world what's inside my heart  
And be loved for who I am~  
  
Would she ever have someone who truly loved her...who she COULD be herself around?  
Satine doubted the possibility.   
After all, she couldn't fall in love...she wouldn't. Love was just a game. Those who fell lost....those who succeeded and managed to convince others that they were loved, they were the winners. Satine was a winner, and money was the prize.   
After all, money was truly the most valuable thing.  
You couldn't live without money...  
Love wouldn't keep her off the streets.  
  
~There's a heart that must be free to fly  
That burns with a need to know the reason why  
Why must we all conceal  
What we think  
How we feel?  
Must there be a secret me  
I'm forced to hide?~  
  
Satine felt a surge of longing.  
Longing to fly away from here...longing to become a real actress who got paid a large fee so she wouldn't have to sell herself anymore to stay out of debt.  
She wondered if anyone else had to act, the way she did.  
Was Harold just putting on a mask with his jolly manner? Was Nini truly a cool, cold-hearted person? Did all the men think nothing of it when they paid her for sex, while a fair few of them had wives and children at home?   
"I guess I'll never know," she thought aloud.  
  
~I won't pretend that I'm someone else for all time~  
  
"One day," Satine quietly promised herself. "One day, I'll be able to expose who I truly am."  
  
~When will my reflection show who I am inside?~  
  
She studied her own face...  
Her ivory skin.  
Her fiery curls.  
Her red lips.  
Her deep blue eyes...eyes that were guarded, afraid to let her true self shine through for even an instant.  
Would she ever find someone that would let her soul shine through?  
  
~When will my reflection show who I am inside?~  



End file.
